


A Different Kind of Forever

by GoldenTruth813



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Established Relationship, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, M/M, and says fuck it all, but Harry hates his job, especially fuck Draco ;)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-04 01:16:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16336949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenTruth813/pseuds/GoldenTruth813
Summary: Harry is fed up with everything in his life, well except for Draco.





	A Different Kind of Forever

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where this came from but I had the urge to write it.
> 
> All the love to restlessandordinary for the fast beta!

Harry stumbled through the Floo with a heavy sigh, his shoulders tense and his head pounding after another painfully long day at the Ministry. Work was—Harry didn’t even know what the fuck work was. 

He wondered if twenty-seven was too young to have a mid-life crisis. Lately, almost every single thing made him feel tetchy and out of sorts, and work was the worst. 

Auror training had been bad enough, constantly being quizzed on laws and protocol. But he’d thought for sure once he became an actual Auror things would change. Harry had thought for sure that his chosen career would be a lot more fulfilling once he was actual an Auror and not just studying to be one. 

Instead though, as the years passed he found himself enjoying his job less and less. He found himself repeatedly on cases that seemed more bureaucratic in nature rather than about actually protecting people. Unless protecting Witches and Wizards from their own stupidity counted. Harry knew he should be grateful there were no Dark Wizards that needed catching and that the most strenuous case he’d had yet was a string of illegal potion rings selling potions meant to make pumpkins grow twice their normal size. But the truth was Harry was tired of dealing with other people’s bullshit. He was tired of taking care of the shit no one else wanted to take care of and tired of being some sort of showpiece for the Ministry—always assigned to cases that were going to end up in the _Daily Prophet._

Worse still was the lack of reprieve he felt when he was off work. His friends were all having kids and buying flats and _“Oh when are you and Draco going to get married?”_ when they met at pub night on Saturdays. Harry hated himself a little bit for being annoyed that they were all settling down and wanted him to as well but he couldn’t help it. Harry didn’t want to get married. He didn’t want kids. He didn’t want to be fast-tracked to become head Auror and sit behind a desk all day and have the most important thing that happened to him be finding out who had baked the lemon drizzle cake in the Auror break room.

The one thing in Harry’s life that wasn’t out of sorts was Draco—the one person who seemed to be as disinclined as Harry to fit into the Wizarding World’s strange post-war obsession with domestic bliss. Not that Harry didn’t want those things with Draco—commitment, affection, a future—he just didn’t like the idea that those things should happen on some sort of timeline as if their choice to end up together was simply part of a plan and not about free will and choice. That and Harry hated the idea that the only way he and Draco’s relationship was going to be taken seriously was through marriage. They’d been together for close to four years. Draco had the top two shelves in the wardrobe, his shampoo was in Harry’s shower and he basically never went to his own flat except to get a change of clothes. Harry was pretty sure the only reason Draco even still had his own flat was so that they had a second place to fuck in.

If there was anyone Harry wanted to be around the rest of his life it was Draco. Maybe it was because he still drove Harry up the fucking wall, because he argued with Harry about everything daily and made everything difficult and there was a part of Harry that liked that. Harry liked that Draco kept him on his toes and never let them fall into a routine or get bored. And maybe it was because even when Draco was arguing with Harry about the proper amount of sugar to put in a cup of tea and calling him a barbarian he still put exactly three and a half spoonfuls of sugar in Harry’s tea for him, or maybe it was because even when Draco had a shit eating grin for being right about it being freezing and spent their entire date night saying “I told you so, Harry” he also silently slipped his own coat around Harry and cast a warming charm at Harry’s gloveless hands.

Harry shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts as he kicked off his shoes and shrugged off his Auror robes, throwing them over the back of the sofa and smiling a little to himself when he thought of the way Draco was surely going to have a go at him about it.

“You’re home,” Draco said, as soon as Harry walked into the kitchen. He was standing in front of the stove, his wand moving through the air gracefully as a pot of something stirred itself. “You’re late you know.”

Harry pressed a kiss to the back of Draco’s shoulder, his chest pressed to Draco’s back as he leaned over him to reach for a mug from the cupboard. 

“I need tea,” was all Harry said, unable to form a coherent thought with his head still pounding, his mind still racing from Robards’ two hour meeting about proper paper protocol he’d been forced to suffer through—all because he kept filling his paperwork out with the wrong color ink—instead of being able to come home to whatever the fuck it was Draco had cooked that made the entire flat smell like _home._

Draco made a tutting noise, swatting Harry’s hand away from the cupboard lightly. “There’s a cup of tea on the table under a warming charm. You know it tastes like shit when it’s been sitting but that’s your own fault for being late.”

That was a lie and Harry knew it. Draco had begun practicing his warming charms once he’d realised Harry’s hours were often long and unpredictable despite the fact that nothing he did was technically urgent. He constantly told Harry his tea or food was going to taste subpar since it’d had to sit, but Harry knew Draco had purposely perfected that warming charm for him and the truth was when Draco cast it the food or tea always tasted as if it had just been made.

A bit of the tension in Harry’s shoulder’s seeped away and instead of going to the table to retrieve his tea he pressed his face into Draco’s hair, closing his eyes and inhaling, his arms winding their way around Draco’s waist.

“You know I love you, yeah?” Harry asked, voice garbled.

“I love you too, you absolute sap,” Draco snorted, but his tone was laced with fondness. “Something wrong?”

Harry shrugged, hoping Draco would pick up on the movement. He knew Draco knew Harry loved him, even if neither one of them had ever been any good at saying it, unsure why he’d felt the sudden urge to say so.

“Just had a bad day. Work was shit,” Harry said, unwilling to remove his face from where it was shoved in the back of Draco’s neck. The skin there was warm and Draco smelled like that new artisan soap he’d bought last week—like cinnamon and apples—and something about it made Harry’s chest ache with a kind of want he didn’t understand.

“Work is always shit,” Draco said.

“I was thinking of quitting,” Harry whispered, the words falling from his mouth easily despite the fact that the idea had only popped into his head seconds ago. 

Draco’s wand stilled, the spoon that had been stirring the soup falling clattering against the side of the pot and splashing the counter with broth. “What brought this on?”

“I want to be happy,” he said quietly, felt the truth of the words settle in his chest enveloping his heart. He hated his job, dreaded going into work every single day. “I think…. I’m not going back tomorrow. I don’t want to go back ever. ”

“What do you want to do?” Draco asked, turning himself around in Harry’s embrace until they were eye to eye.

“Hadn’t thought that far ahead. Eat soup. Have tea. Take a headache potion. Fuck.”

Draco snorted and it looked like he was fighting back a smile. “Did you just decide this right now?”

Harry nodded, letting his fingers slip underneath the hem of Draco’s cashmere jumper to finger at the skin just above his trousers.

“Merlin you’re impulsive.”

“I had another idea,” Harry said.

Draco rolled his eyes. “Want to run away and join the circus?”

Harry grinned. “Not the circus but I was thinking of running away.”

Draco raised an eyebrow, fingers sliding down into the belt loops of Harry’s jeans to pull him closer. There was a hint of apprehension in his eyes as he whispered, “Where are you going to go?”

Draco’s voice caught on you and Harry knew his decision was made. “Was thinking we might just fuck off and travel the world.”

The worry in Draco’s eyes was gone in a moment, the smile he’d been fighting finally spreading across his face in a way that was almost radiant. Fuck Harry liked when he smiled. 

“We have jobs, flats, responsibilities. We can’t just fuck off with no plan.”

Harry leaned forward, pressing his lips to Draco’s and delighting in the small sigh Draco emitted at the first brush of their lips. When he pulled back Draco’s eyes were closed and Harry felt a thrill of pleasure at the sight. 

“Firstly, I’m going to quit and you freelance so you could work anywhere. Secondly, you never use your flat so you might as well get rid of it and my lease is up soon anyway. Thirdly, who fucking cares.”

“You’re an actual menace, you know that.”

Harry rested their foreheads together, nudging Draco’s nose with his own. “That’s not a no.”

“As if I would say no to you,” Draco breathed and Harry snorted.

“You say no to me all the fucking time.”

Draco’s eyes sparkled with mirth as he stole a quick kiss. “That’s different and you know it.”

Harry nodded. “I know,” he whispered, deepening the kiss. 

“There’s just one change to your plans I need to make,” Draco murmured against his mouth, tugging him backward toward the bedroom.

“What’s that?” Harry asked, pretty sure Draco could change anything he wanted so long as he didn’t stop that thing he was doing with his fingers that were worming their way down the back of his trousers.

“Fucking first. Soup and tea later,” he said.

Harry smiled into the kiss, letting Draco drag him down the corridor.  
Yeah, Harry thought, he might not have wanted a house with a white picket fence or a piece of paper from the Ministry granting their relationship some sort of stupid fucking authenticity but it didn’t mean he didn't want Draco. _Forever._


End file.
